


Who do you call (to make the shooting stop)

by demigodscum



Series: All Your Troubles [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Unrequited Love, avengers 4 SPOILER FREE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 01:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16985715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigodscum/pseuds/demigodscum
Summary: Sometimes she's scared, sometimes she's a hypocrite.





	Who do you call (to make the shooting stop)

**Author's Note:**

> I write these when I feel like shit, and when I feel like shit, I don't feel like editing much, so there's your forewarning of any mistakes.
> 
> Title from Objects in the Mirror by Mac Miller.
> 
>  **Trigger warning:** panic attack.
> 
>  _ **PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:**_ please please please be aware that a lot of people (myself included) are avoiding any and all spoilers about anything to do with 4vengers, so please please please refrain from discussing it on public mediums without a proper way of warning others about it beforehand. Thank you for your consideration.
> 
> On that note, I guess I should say that I have no theories whatsoever about what will happen, and this series is in no way meant to be a prediction of any kind.

The water runs down, down, down.

Falls, falls, falls.

She hears it swirling down the drain, splattering against the tiles, but she can’t see it through the foggy glass enclosing the shower stall.

“Toni, hurry up or I’m going without you.”

The water drags her down, down, down.

In, in, in.

She hears it sloshing around her, spilling over the edges, but she can’t see it through her closed lids.

“Toni?”

The water the water the water.

Down down down.

“Antonia, if you don’t answer, I’m coming in.”

_The water the water the water._

_Peter Peter Peter._

“Oh, baby girl. Come here.”

Rhodey is shaking around her, trembling as he winds his arms around her and squeezes hard.

The water runs on, on, on.

Their twined hands press on her chest— _one_ —over the arc reactor— _two_ —push down— _three_ —let up— _four_ —easy.

She becomes aware of the line of his shoulders behind hers, just a little misaligned, becomes aware of the warmth of his breath next to her ear, whispering numbers in sync with the movement of their chests, becomes aware of his _immutable_ presence around her, resilient against her subsiding tremors.

“You with me?” he asks quietly. All she can do is nod, earns and nod back from Rhodey before he starts shuffling them forward without breaking apart. “Come on, we’ll do it together.” The words elicit a tiny whimper from her, reverberate against the cavities of her heart. There’s a sound in her ear that she’s heard before, a soft _shhh_ that takes her back to the floor of a cold bunker, to someone finding her and saying _shhh_ in the most human, most humane voice she’d ever heard.

Then there’s a hand reaching past her, there’s a cloud of vapor warming her face, and then there’s

The sound of metal

_CLANG_

The sound of metal

_CLANG_

The sound of glass

_CRACK_

The sound of her soul shattering

_CLANG CRACK CLANG_

The sound of her breathing

_There is no sound she can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can’t_

“HEY!”

And then it’s gone and there’s Rhodey standing in front of her, blocking the water from the shower head, and her heart, whatever remains of it, is drilling a hole in her chest to escape.

“You’re safe, Toni. It’s just a shower. Can you lower your arms for me?”

She doesn’t understand the question for a moment, not until she registers that both her arms are raised and crossed in front of her, that she can only see a part of Rhodey’s face through the gap in the X that they make. She lets them fall to her sides, sees all of Rhodey from the shoulders up, but it’s still weird, there’s still something off, and she only realizes what it is because he says, “Now, can you open the faceplate? It’s just me, just me and water, you’re safe, baby, I promise.”

And then the HUD is gone and she can feel the steam again, but the droplets aren’t hitting her anymore because Rhodey is protecting her.

“It’s just water, honey,” he repeats.

 _Rhodey Rhodey Rhodey_.

Toni says, “Ice is water,” and his face falls, goes from concerned frown to anguished pinch. “Ice is water, water freezes, water drowns, I can’t—”

 _Shhh_ , Rhodey goes again, wraps his arms around her, everything and nothing like when he did it in a college dorm, in a desert, in a hospital room. Everything and nothing like when Vision did it in a bunker.

Each of those times, something in her _broke_ , and someone helped her solder it back together.

This time…

Voids are not something that can be reassembled.

The water still swirls around where they’re now sitting on the floor of the shower stall. Although she can’t feel it through the armor—and she doesn’t even remember when she got it back on—it still makes her skin crawl underneath the nanobots.

Rhodey must notice—of course he does—because he turns the temperature hotter yet, grits his teeth against the onslaught of it on his back, and says, “You’re _safe_.”

Toni just stares at him, at his grim determination and his obvious compassion. Studies the protective line of his shoulders and the careful bend of his knees. Looks at the steady rise and fall of his chest until her rhythm matches his, until the messy leftovers of her heart beat out, in erratic Morse code, _you’re safe you’re safe you’re safe_.

Rhodey reaches to grab a bottle from the rack above him and signals her to turn around. Her eyes fly to the shower head in alarm, but the feeling dissipates again when he assures, “I’m here, baby. I got your six, not going anywhere.”

Toni moves, positions herself to face the wall she had been leaning against. When Rhodey asks whether the shampoo will damage the nanites, she shakes her head, and then his fingers are there, massaging her scalp softly.

They did this a few times, back when they were young, back when she first returned from Afghanistan, back when Obie betrayed her. Again when he couldn’t stand on his own.

“You always do,” murmurs Toni, sure that he will hear and understand.

Rhodey always hears, always understands.

 _Rhodey Rhodey Rhodey_.

Yet he says, “Not always. I’m so sorry.” His voice, warm and deep, is pierced by an obvious lance of pain that goes through her as well.

“Rhodey…” she breathes, turns around to face him, to make sure he _knows_ , “Rhodey, _no_. You were in a _coma_ —”

“I should’ve been there.”

“I shouldn’t have let you hit the ground.”

They stare at one another, each trying to win a pointless fight that they both know neither can really win anyway.

He concedes first, always more reasonable, relaxes his rigid stance to joke, “You know, I spent more time with you after the accident than I did the year before it.” It loosens the knot in her throat at the same time that it makes her cringe, but Rhodey stops her from even trying to apologize with only a pointed glance.

He stands up, drags her with him by her hands, maneuvers Toni’s body to tilt her head back so her hair falls in front him. Toni tenses again, anticipating an assault of water, but there’s only a slight pressure, and she realizes that Rhodey is blocking most of it still, that he is still shielding her from her fears, from the things that hurt her. Again, his hands are buried in her soaked curls, washing away the suds with the most gentleness she has felt in what seems like a very long time.

When his hands drop away, Toni takes a deep breath— _one_ —and retracts the nanobots, takes another breath— _two_ —and slips off her under suit jacket, takes another breath— _three_ —filled with steam, so unlike the cold of a cave, so unlike the cold of a bunker, and pushes down her pants until she’s standing, shaking, in her underwear.

Rhodey doesn’t even try to hand her the soap bar, just wordlessly runs it over her arms— _inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale_ —her back— _inhale, exhale_ —her stomach— _inhale, exhale_ —stoops down to reach her legs— _inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale_.

He turns them around slowly, making sure to keep their bodies pressed together, and she doesn’t breathe at all, not when the water is falling directly on her, but Rhodey does it again, goes _shhh_ in her ear until the fear quiets down and her skin is clean.

They leave it at that. Rhodey won’t do the rest, and Toni doesn’t care enough about personal hygiene at the moment to do it herself. The shower shuts off, yet neither of them move. Toni stares at the drain, watching the last dregs of the water swirl down, watching the residue of everything in her that _hurts_ disappear down the pipe.

Rhodey interrupts her, directs her to step out of the stall, towels her off gently but efficiently, the way he does everything with her. When they’re moving to the room, she notices that his prostheses are trailing water behind them.

“Wait, I can carry—”

“You’re not putting on the suit again.” His voice is final, leaves no room for negotiation. She doesn’t have he energy to fight him, so she lets it be until they reach the bed. There, Toni pushes him to sit down on the mattress, and with trembling but caring hands undresses him: shirt, prostheses, pants. He gives her a look when she tries to slip off his boxers, says, “We need a line.”

Toni responds, “We really don’t,” but backs off either way, goes to find them both dry clothes. When she returns, Rhodey has a troubled expression on his face.

“You know I—”

She has a decent guess as to what he’d say. Still, there are a few possibilities, some more likely than others, but the fact of the matter is that she doesn’t _need_ him to say it. Whatever it is, whatever he wants or doesn’t want, does or doesn’t do, Toni is fine with it because Rhodey has been there longer than anyone else has been. Because Rhodey says things like “I should’ve been there.” Because Rhodey has undressed her a hundred times only to find bruises, only for her to throw up, only to discover that she’s not entirely human anymore, that someone carved a hole in her and she fixed it the only way she could.

Because Rhodey continues to do it. Because she trusts him to _stay_.

 _Rhodey Rhodey Rhodey_.

So she doesn’t need to hear it, doesn’t need clarification or validation.

“I know,” Toni whispers with a press of her lips against his temple.

They change on either side of the bed, their backs to each other. They lay down, not quite on opposite sides, not quite in the middle.

“What did he do?”

_He hurt me._

_He broke the heart that I made for myself after somebody else did the same._

_He betrayed me._

“He told me the truth.”

Rhodey isn’t fooled for a second. Her voice, low and shaky, gives it away; the truth is worse than the lie was.

“Howard was right, Rhodey. Everyone has always been right.”

“Right about what?”

And maybe Rhodey wouldn’t leave her because of this—she _knows_ he wouldn’t—but shame still curls tight inside of her, interlaces with the anger and the disappointment and the life-old self-hatred.

“Remember… remember that assessment Romanoff made—”

He interrupts her with a tense, “Yes.”

“And I insisted that Iron Woman and I were the same.”

“You _are_ ,” Rhodey insists vehemently. “That suit is nothing without you, Toni. What was that thing you told me used against Pe—” her flinch is so extreme that he doesn’t even let himself finish the name, opting instead to clutch her hand between both of his. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t leave me again.”

He means _Don’t get lost inside your head again_ , she knows. She doesn’t, but still, the “I’m here” she reassures him with feels empty, sends a pang of guilt through her.

Nodding, Rhodey ressumes, “So, that thing you felt bad for saying? It’s true. For him and you,” _for you too_ , “You make the suit. The suit doesn’t make you.”

Her left hand comes out from under the pillow to brush his cheek softly. His blind love, tempered by his careful trust, is an anchor she has clung to from the moment she had it. Somehow—she doesn’t know the specifics of how or when—Toni has come to trust that he isn’t going to abandon her just because.

“I—I tried to… atone. Mark I was about escaping Afghanistan, but Mark II was about doing good.”

He takes her hand in his, twining their fingers and squeezing when he argues, “You _have_ done good. So much good.” Toni smiles, small and self-deprecating, because it is all so ironic that her eyes prickle with the urge to cry.

“Maybe.”

Rhodey isn’t convinced. He knows that is not it, knows that she hasn’t made her point yet, but he gives her space to think, gives her, inadvertently, room to _breathe_ so she doesn’t asphyxiate when she finally gets the rest of the words out.

“Iron Woman and I are the same. Her mistakes are my own, and mine are hers,” Toni gasps with the stab of agony that squeezes her lungs.”I built a suit of armor to fight myself, and all I did was sentence myself to death penalty.”

And then she’s pulled tight into an embrace, her face buried in Rhodey’s shoulder as she trembles.

“Howard was right. I was never going to win.”

There are tears burning a trail down her cheeks, hot with the ire of conceding to the ghost of her childhood, hot with the shame of never being enough.

“What was the _point_ , Rhodey? If this is how it was going to end, _what was the point_?”

His hand rubs slow circles between her shoulder blades. Softly, he asks her, “Would you take it back? Any of it. If you could, would you take it back?”

Her immediate response is to say yes. To say, _I didn’t ask for this pain_. To say, _This isn’t how it was meant to be_. To say, _I just wanted to be better_.

But then she’s renouncing her father’s legacy, surveying a sea of disbelieving reporters. Then she’s soaring up into the night sky, staring at the sprawl of the lit up Greater L.A. Then she’s on her back, gazing into his relieved blue eyes as he smiles at her for the first time. Then she’s sitting on a plastic chair, peering furtively at her team while they all eat quietly. Then she’s meeting Vision, studying the yellow crystal on his forehead with wonder. Then she’s in Peter’s room, contemplating his serious face as he talks about his powers.

Then she’s standing in her lab, hearing him say _Together_ , and when she replies, aloud, “ _No_. No, I wouldn’t,” it’s strangled, the words barely there, because then she’s in a cave, flying through a wormhole, in a bunker, measuring her blood toxicity, in a spaceship, drowning amid the debris of her home, in a nightmare, asking FRIDAY to search the name _Charlie Spencer_ , in a farmhouse, holding a flip phone and a folded piece of paper, in an exoplanet, standing in a field while he kills her in the only way that ever mattered.

“Did you tell him?” She whispers the answer, and Rhodey sighs and continues, “Don’t you think it’d be good for you to say it for once?”

Her muscles tense further, lungs compressing in panic at the mere idea. “Absolutely fucking _not_. No. And—and don’t you say it. Don’t—don’t—” _don’t make it real. Let me forget_.

She’s held closer still, that sound— _shhh_ —playing in her ear again like a lullaby on a repeat.

“Do you think he should know?”

That pulls her quickly out of the rabbit hole, and she laughs cruelly when she answers, “He knows.” Among her memories, there are countless flashes of him glancing away when he catches her staring, of him standing half a step further away from her than he does anybody else, of him treating her tech with hesitancy that bordered on distrust. “He’s always known.”

Toni and Rhodey are quiet for a long while after that, breathing slow, limbs tangled together in a familiar mess. There’s nothing about it that is uncomfortable for either of them, nothing that pressures them to move.

At one point, Rhodey whispers, “You’ll always have me,” and a sharp spike of guilt goes through her. She knows he means it, knows he knows she feels the same way.

She could say it. She _has_ said it.

Rhodey’s heartbeat is steady under her ear, comforting and immutable.

She’s tired of lying.

She doesn’t want to say it this time.

“You too,” she whispers back.

It’s another lie, another defense mechanism, another point in her infinite scoreboard of unforgivable things she’s done.

She thinks of watching that video, of realizing that _he lied_ , and it makes her resent him a little more, makes her hate herself a little more.

Toni burrows closer yet and doesn’t cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr sucks ):<


End file.
